Why The "Golf's Biggest Events" Graphic Evokes So Much Outrage
/
Given the terrible times you’d think golf fans might be shrug off a silly, poorly-executed graphic.
The current graphic of scorn comes under the banner, Golf’s Biggest Events. In the past it’s been something about Championship Season, Season of Championships, etc. and has been relentless mocked by the younger sophisticates the game theoretically hopes to embrace.
The PGA Tour’s partners at CBS, NBC and Golf Channel all have used the graphic because of exposure to PVDS, currently untreatable by any drug or vaccine.
Ponte Vedra’s Desperation Syndrome has been seen most in VP’s based around greater Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. It generally inflicts males with marketing backgrounds. Scientists looking into the syndrome have found PVDS to most impact those with almost no sense of the game’s history, no interest in anything but PGA Tour, and who have shown an almost irrational belief in The Players and FedExCup Playoffs rising to major championship levels.
PVDS has also been known to be highly contagious in certain sectors. Researchers find that senior level television network executives often labor under the syndrome’s most relentless, bonus-impacting elements. They will even sometimes take to Twitter, as NBC’s prime PGA Tour liaison Tom Knapp did, to defend the madness as viewers point out flaws in the graphic’s logic and execution. (See below.)
(The replies now sleep with the fishes after just one too many replies slamming Golf Channel for ignoring the women’s game, but that’s why we leave browser tabs open.)
Various LPGA players and media shared the tweet and their disdain for the inconsistency (examples here, here, here and here. The most pointed from an LPGA player:
You can still see the offending graphic above and screen captures of the replies below. Obviously, the graphic should have simply said Men’s Biggest Events or something more clever. And the graphic should correctly state the dates of the FedExCup Playoffs, though the inclusion of those playoffs is only to keep the Ponte Vedra red phone from ringing. Few syndrome-free individuals believe they warrant inclusion on the list of championships above and many other smart folks could make a case that the desperation undercuts the cache of certain “biggest” events.
The outrage in a time of strife and pandemic speaks more to the channel’s unexpected new direction for those outside of the thralls of PVDS and who, devoted as viewers, fear for its future.
Just this week, Golf Channel reporter and anchor Lisa Cornwell painted a less than rosy picture of the network’s culture and its recent elimination of females from the channel payrolls in the name of Comcast/NBC Sports cost slashing.
The graphic causes more annoyance than is should due to relentless rollout of the USGA’s “Women Worth Watching” campaign, fueled on and off air by a woefully inorganic Golf Channel rollout.
And finally, these kinds of graphics remind viewers that a successful channel built on catering to many different golf audiences and viewers is fueled by a move to PGA Tour state TV mode that is already tough to watch and increasingly harder to trust.
Now, back to the more serious matters at hand.
**The people were heard!
